


the cold wind blows and my eyes slide shut (my heart cuts itself open)

by anonymousAlchemist



Series: Terrible AU's to break your heart. [3]
Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: NOT EVEN CLOSE TO AS DARK AS THE TAGS MAKE IT SEEM, Trigger Warning: drug overdose, because that seems neccessary, because that would spoil things, but here:, trigger warning: suicide imagery, you know what I'm not going to explain jack shit about this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 14:51:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2736599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousAlchemist/pseuds/anonymousAlchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"My death will solve everything," he thinks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <em>And so we return, once more, to the Unknown. Where lost children wander the forest and strange stories unfold under the misted woods. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Repetition

**Author's Note:**

> you know what i'm just not gonna say anything about this one. 
> 
> enjoy, kids.

_And so we return, once more, to the Unknown. Where lost children wander the forest and strange stories unfold under the mists of the woods._

It is autumn again. A year has passed and the leaves are gold and red and brown and fall, rustling, from the trees. Time for pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, costumes and candy. Children’s laughter, running footsteps. Trick-or-treat in the soft glow of streetlamps and lit windows and doors.

 

A year has passed and we are all of us older.

 

Wirt stands in front of his mirror, fastening the collar of his cloak. It’s shorter now, brushing his knees. He’s grown. Frowning, he adjusts the red cone hat on his head. Wirt looks at his reflection in the mirror, and raises his hands like it’s a ritual. As if replication of motion denotes any sort of repetition of events. It’s superstitious, he knows, but this he has to get right. He’s become more superstitious since, well, you know.

 

“Yes. Yes!”

“Wirt? What are you yelling about?”

 

His mom’s voice floats up from outside his door. She’s been worried about him, this last year when she isn’t not consumed in her own sorrow. She’s also been making him see a child psychologist, and he doesn’t blame her. It has been twelve months to the day since Wirt and Greg climbed a wall, dodged a train, and fell into a river, unconscious.

 

Wirt wakes up. Greg doesn’t.

 

But Wirt doesn’t realize that until he’s hauled his younger brother out of the river, doesn’t realize it until he wakes up in the hospital to worried eyes and explanations.

Greg isn’t dead, they say, he breathes, his chest rises up and down, breath exhales, inhales, but his eyes are glued tight, he has brain activity similar to REM sleep. It’s a mystery, the doctors say, we don’t know whether he’s going to wake up, or when.  

 

He could be asleep forever, he could wake up five minutes from now.

This is what Wirt learns in the year after his little brother’s plunge into the river:

 

Hope is what breaks people. Hope makes his mom and his stepdad drive to the hospital three times a week and on weekends to sit in Greg’s room, hope makes his classmates all look at him sympathetically and say “I’m sure he’ll wake up soon,” hope is the steady heartbeat beeping REM sleep screen above Greg’s bed. Hope is watching his little brother sleep his life away while knowing this is all his fault.

Hope twists his stomach into knots, fills his heart with puncture-marks, replaces his blood with a sea of bile. Guilt, guilt, guilt.

 

Wirt opens the door, peeks his head out at his mom, standing in the hallway with a load of laundry and an inquisitive look. He smiles at her, deliberately.

 

“Nothing, mom. I got something to work, that’s all.”

 

She smiles back, just as deliberately. She loves her oldest son. The lines on her face are deeper now, a worried furrow has crinkled itself over her forehead. She loves her youngest son as well, and it takes a toll.

 

“Alright. Wirt, are you going anywhere tonight? I heard there’s a party happening at your friend Sara’s.”

“Yeah, I’m going to head over after I finish getting ready.”

 

Mom frowns, looks him up and down.

“What are you wearing? Isn’t that the same thing you wore last year? What are you supposed to be, anyway?”

Rapid-fire parental questioning, a feature of mothers everywhere. Wirt shrugs nonchalantly.

“I think I’m some sort of...gnome? Maybe a wizard. I’m not exactly sure. Yeah, I wore it last year, too.”

She frowns harder. Her brow furrows.

“Are you sure you want to wear the same thing as last year, honey?”

 

Unspoken is the worry, unspoken is the wondering why her son wears the same costume he almost drowned in. Wirt shrugs again. He doesn’t have an acceptable answer.

 

“It just felt right, I guess. Also I forgot to get one earlier this week.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to find something else for you to wear?”

“Mom, I’m fine. Thanks though.”

“Alright, kiddo. Give your mom a hug before you head out, okay?”

“Sure.”

 

Wirt hugs his mother. She squeezes him tighter than usual, and he squeezes back. Tonight is an anniversary neither of them will mention.

 

She’s got watery eyes when she lets go, and Wirt feels a brief pang of guilt for what he’s going to do.

 

“Have fun at Sara’s.”

“I will.”

 

Lies, lies, lies.

 

He closes the door again. Opens his bedside drawer and pulls out a small orange bottle, along with a matchbook, swiss army knife, flashlight, and telephone. He slips most of the items in his pocket, but takes the flashlight in hand. This time he’s going to be prepared. He leaves the house, waving goodbye to his stepdad, and steps into the brisk fall air.

At the corner of Somerset and Main, he turns left instead of right. Follows the road up to the stone wall at Eternal Garden Cemetary. Wirt turns on the flashlight. He marches through the graveyard with purpose. Today is the day he’ll solve everything, tonight is the night he’s going to get his brother back. Fear curdles in his stomach. He scales the rough stone wall, walks across the train tracks, and sits on the bank of the river.

 

He stares at the dark ribbon for a long moment. He sighs, and takes out the phone and pill bottle.

 

Wirt takes the phone in one hand, and the pills in another. Sleeping pills, taken from the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. He’s not quite sure what they’ll do, or how they'll do it, but they seemed like the easiest way of, well. He breathes a long breath. This is it, the culmination of months of planning, a year’s worth of mental anguish.

He presses the little neon buttons and holds the phone to his face. 9-1-1

 

_Hello this is 911 what is your emergency?_

 

Wirt takes a second deep breath to bolster himself.

 

“Hello, I’d like to report a suicide attempt. The, uh, suicider is on the bank of the river right behind Eternal Garden Cemetary. He’s a teenager in a Halloween costume and he took a bunch of pills. He has a flashlight on. Thanks.”

_O-oh, okay, we’ll send a team right over. Stay on the line, okay? Are you alright? Are you with him?”_

“Sorry. I, uh, can’t do that.”

 

Wirt hangs up. He places the phone down on the cool ground. This is it, the moment of truth. He dry-swallows the pills one by one mechanically, trying not to think about what he’s doing. He lies down, face up on the cold grass, and stares at the stars. He imagines that he can feel the pills working their magic, the chemicals dissolving and running through his bloodstream. His eyelids grow heavy. It feels weird. He closes his eyes and sees nothing. He feels numb, he hopes the EMTs come, but not too soon. He’s got to reach it, he’s got to reach -what? He can’t really think anymore, he hopes that this works, he hopes that it works, he hopes that it-

  
Here is what Wirt learns: dying is just like drowning. They both feel like falling asleep.


	2. Walk

* * *

 

-and he is walking in a forest with heavy mist swirling around his footsteps. Tall treetrunks all around him. A menacing sort of shadow. Wirt stops suddenly. His feet scuff the dirt path.

He looks around, grinning wildly.

“Yes. Yes!”

And so we return, once again, to the Unknown.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aight chapter 1 part 1 & 2’s done, bitches. don’t expect an upd8 too soon, i’ve got finals and tests and essays to contend with eep. 
> 
> if you’re confused as to what happened: the unknown is the threshold of death, and wirt decides to attempt a suicide in order to get back to the unknown and rescue his brother. he does not intend to die, and as such, I hesitate to label it a suicide but for all apparent views it looks like one. 
> 
> I’m actually super pissed at myself because even though i had started this way earlier, someone else is writing a really fantastic fic with a similar premise and im like UGH DAMN we had similar ideas lol. ok that was a digression. carry on with your day.


	3. this is an apology and an explanation and a summary

Um yeah. I feel like a real ass for leaving this fic for so long, and still not having an update. I’ve sort of lost interest in this fandom (for the time being) and don’t really have the time to write this fic in the way I want to write it, ie, all grand and mythic and heartbreaking. I’ve also realized that I have a lot of plot to figure out if I want to do this properly.

So while I waffle about writing more or not writing more, I’ll leave a skeleton summary of how events would/will play out. Because I enjoy it when fic authors do that after they abandon works, and consider this work temporarily abandoned. I feel like it’s fair to at least let you guys know what would have happened, you know? Especially after leaving this for so long.

Don’t read this if you don’t want spoilers for hypothetical updates, haha.

 

PART 1

 

Or, Wirt’s descent back into the Unknown. This time he’s prepared. He’s got supplies, he sort of understands how this place works, he has a mission and he will not be lost to the woods because he is DETERMINED to get his brother back at all costs. Failure is not an option.

(He’s terrified. He secretly wonders whether Greg is an Edelwood tree. He wonders if Greg had been captured by Adelaide, or some other mythic creature that lives here.)

Wirt’s first task is to find civilization and procure directions/a map. He finds the old mill first (there are reasons behind this being the first thing he sees, again), but this time the old mill is shiny and clean and working and the windows are lighted.

He meets Beatrice and her family, who are very happy to see him. Wirt is surprised at how pretttyyyy Beatrice is but everything’s chill between them and they’re glad to see each other.

STUFF HAPPENS. explore explore explore. No one has heard any sign of a small kid, but the rumors about the beast have become stranger and stranger. foreshaaaadowing.

The climax of part 1 is the realization that Greg is the Beast. And Wirt and Beatrice being all “Oh fuck” about it.

 

INTERLUDE 1

 

from Sara’s POV. Wirt’s mom calls her house, asks if Wirt is there. He isn’t. Sara is vaguely worried. Sara and her/Wirt’s friends discuss whether they should go find him. They go looking.

 

PART 2

 

Wirt and Beatrice, in shock. Wirt doesn’t know what to do anymore. He’s a lil bit heartbroken about this, he wonders if he can even do this, he has his moment of self doubt.

They talk, and it’s all sorts of heartfelt, awkward, and illuminating.

They need to learn more about the Beast. They ask Beatrice’s parents, and they ask other people, and then they go to find the Woodsman, because he’s got to know something, right?

They meet the Woodsman’s daughter, who is pretty chill. The Woodsman can’t tell them that much, except for what the Beast is made of, and the whole soul thing.

They come up with a plan to lure the beast etc.

 

INTERLUDE 2

Wirt’s mom gets a call and it’s the second worst call of her life, only because the last time she got a call like this she thought both of her sons were dying.

  
  


PART 3

this is endgame. They lure greg somehow. They’re still not sure how to get the beast out of greg, or even if they’re one person or two entities melded.

Wirt agonizes over what to do.

  
Then meeting happens, and it’s dramatic as shit. Greg is this creepy monster child. Wirt is equal parts terrified and sad and determined, as is Beatrice.

eventually Wirt gets control of the lamp, and instead of blowing it out, he fUCKING SETS GREG ON FIRE. And it burns away the wooden soul-coat. And inside greg is there, and he’s fine.

HEARTWARMING REUNION TIME. HUGS AND HAPPY CRYING FOR EVERYONE.

Greg and Wirt leave, again asking Beatrice to come with them. This time she does.

They walk into the woods. end scene.

 

EPILOGUE 1

from the EMT’s POV and a nurse’s POV.

Greg wakes up and Wirt wakes up as well, in the back of an ambulance. It’s cute and heartwarming as shit. Beatrice appears in the graveyard or something.

 

EPILOGUE 2

 

A year later. Everything is fine. The boys and Beatrice go trick or treating, and their figures fade into the distance. cue credits.

  
  



End file.
